The Operating Room
by Thobbit
Summary: Dollhouse!AU of SPN. Sam's a doll and Dean made a deal to get him a shorter sentence. But it's not with "Lucifer" that ex-FBI agent and new handler Dean Winchester is paired. [Might be a one-shot; might be TBC. Feel free to offer advice.]


**The Operating Room**

**-{+}-**

Dean stepped dubiously into the...operating room, he thought he'd call it. That's what they were doing: operating on people's brains. Sort of. That's what he'd tell himself, anyway, so that he could stomach what he was about to do.

It did look sort of hospital-y, at least. Everything was clean and white, from the walls to computers to the papers stacked neatly on the white desk in one corner. It was pretty spartan. All the focus was on the weird-looking chair in the center of the room, with its ominous-looking straps and sinister semicircle of glowing, brainwashing machinery at the headrest.

Someone was strapped in right now, and the breath caught in Dean's throat as he recognized the tall, tousled form under the menacing blue glow. Sammy.

He started forward, lunging for Sam or the tech working the contraption, he wasn't sure. But a small hand caught at one elbow and yanked him back with surprising force, almost making him lose his balance. He looked down and met the fierce, cold gaze of a brunette, long-haired and about two thirds his size.

"Who're you?" he demanded.

"Ruby," she responded levelly. She hadn't let go of his arm yet. The chick had a grip like iron. "I'm Lucifer's handler. You must be Dean Winchester."

He glanced back at his brother, lying oblivious to the world in the brain-bleaching chair. "_Lucifer_? What the hell?"

"Our Actives are named for angels."

"Wasn't Lucifer––?"

Ruby smiled thinly, like a wolf. "We take all sorts." Reassured, presumably, that he wasn't going to attack anyone, she slackened her grip. He pulled away, rubbing his arm surreptitiously on his pants. It actually hurt a bit.

A low humming that he hadn't really noticed stopped suddenly, and Sammy bounded out of the Brainwash Chair. At least, he looked like Sammy. But there was something wrong with his smile, and his eyes, and the way he flipped his too-long hair when he turned his head.

"Thanks, doc!" said Not-Sammy, grinning flirtatiously at the tech.

She smiled back, albeit a bit stiffly. "Any time, Rob."

"You got my stuff?" Not-Sammy––Rob––asked with a wink. Sammy didn't wink. Sammy was a geek. "I got this great new joy buzzer, looks like a candy bar. No way he's not gonna fall for it."

Ruby stepped forward. "Come on, let's get you dressed. We've got your stuff in the next room."

Rob-Not-Sammy grinned cheekily at her, too. "Lead on, fair maid." She spun on one heel and strode out. He followed, sauntering past Dean without a glance.

"What the hell was that?" the ex-FBI agent demanded as soon as his brother was out of the room.

"That was an imprint," the tech replied, professional and authoritative. "His name is Rob. He's a frat boy just out of college, and he's going to go engage in an annual 24-hour prank war with his best friend, Gabriel, a software entrepreneur who hires him––or someone like him––every year for his birthday." The words 'prank war' made her look like she was sucking on a lemon.

"That's sick," said Dean. "That's really just sick."

"Why?" she asked, meeting his gaze without a shred of doubt. She just as cold as Ruby, but taller, better-dressed, and a hell of a lot less emotional. "They both enjoy it, no one is hurt, and we make a tidy profit." She turned away from him, pulling something up on the white computer. "Anyway, you only have to stomach it for another thirty-two months."

Dean's hot reply was averted by the entrance of two more people, both guys. One was obviously security, hard and alert in a sharp suit; the other was obviously a doll, pale and dark-haired, and vague, dressed in white-and-blue striped pajamas.

"Here you go, Naomi," said the security guard, stopping in the doorway and waving the doll forward. "Ready for rewrite."

"Thank you," said Naomi, dismissing him with the slightest of nods. She smiled invitingly at the doll, gesturing towards the chair. "Have a seat, Castiel."

The doll––or "Active" as Dean supposed he should start calling them––sat obediently, leaning back in the Brainwash Chair like he did this every day. Maybe he did.

"Hold still," Naomi directed, bending over and adjusting the angle of something. It struck Dean as a superfluous order––the Active called Castiel seemed content to just lie there forever.

Naomi pressed a couple buttons and the mind-melting machine hummed to life, bathing Castiel's head in that creepy blue glow. "Take his hand," she instructed Dean, returning to her computer. "And make eye contact."

Dean obeyed dubiously, ever instinct in his body screaming at him to get the hell out of there. It was for Sammy, he reminded himself. Join the party, cut down on his time. That was the deal he'd made.

"You know your lines?" Naomi asked curtly. She pulled some complicated graphic up on her screen; it looked like a brain.

"Yeah, I know my lines," grumbled Dean. "I still don't see why I can't do this with Sam. It'd be––"

"A temptation. _Lucifer_ already has a handler, with whom he works very well. As you will with Castiel, I'm sure." She eyed him darkly, the "or else" unspoken but clear.

Something beeped on her computer and she glanced over at it and smiled in satisfaction. "Ready. Go."

Dean gripped the doll's hand, looking down into his deep blue eyes. "Everything's going to be all right."

"Now that you're here," Castiel recited back at him, monotone but sincere, face bathed in the deceptively warm light of the Brainwashing Chair.

"Do you trust me?" Dean asked, wondering why on earth anyone should possibly answer in the affirmative.

Castiel squeezed his hand gently back, eyes wide and innocent and safe. "With my life."

Fuck it. He wasn't just going to break Sammy out of this hell. He was going to save _everyone_.


End file.
